Tag Archives: Competition

We are excited to announce that Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild is once again partnering with Conflux Inc to bring you the CSFG/Conflux 13 short story competition!

This year’s theme is (wait for it…)

BLOOD, GOLD, LIES

These bright and bitter threads wind through the heart of many a grim tale and we want to see what you make of them. We want your tales of 4000 words or under, incorporating these three words somehow, in any speculative fiction genre. It doesn’t have to be a twisted fairy tale, but it does have to be speculative.

The competition is open to all Australian residents and members of either the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild or Conflux 13.

Entry is $5, unless you are a member of the CSFG or Conflux 13 or you are aged 16 or under, in which case it is free!

Prizes

First prize is $200 and a 2018 Conflux 14 membership! Second prize is $50 and a discounted Conflux 14 membership, and third prize is $25 and a discounted Conflux 14 membership.

Guidelines

Stories should be written in English, suitable for a general audience (ie, no gratuitous violence or erotica) and, of course, your own original, unpublished work.

Please submit them in the following format: RTF, double spaced, courier font, with the story title in the top right header.

Make the first page of your document a cover sheet that includes your name, contact details and story title (we’ll remove this before we give it to the judges). YOUR NAME MUST NOT APPEAR ON ANY OF THE OTHER PAGES OF THE STORY.

The CSFG/Conflux Short Story competition is back for Conflux 12

We want your stories of 4000 words or under, in any speculative fiction genre, on this year’s theme, which is: red fire monkey.

The competition is open to all Australian residents and members of either the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild or Conflux 12.

Entry is $5, unless you are a member of the CSFG or Conflux 12 or you are aged 16 or under, in which case it is free!

Prizes

First prize is $200 and a 2017 Conflux 13 membership! Second prize is $50 and a discounted Conflux 13 membership, and third prize is $25 and a discounted Conflux 13 membership.

Guidelines

Stories should be written in English, suitable for a general audience (ie, no gratuitous violence or erotica), and, of course, your own original, unpublished work.

Please submit them in the following format: RTF, double spaced, courier font, with the story title in the top right header.

Make the first page of your document a cover sheet that includes your name, contact details and story title (we’ll remove this before we give it to the judges). YOUR NAME MUST NOT APPEAR ON ANY OF THE OTHER PAGES OF THE STORY.

CSFG is really excited to announce we have been given a bunch of free passes to THE WITCH!

To win one, you need to write us a flash fiction piece in 200 words or less on the theme below and post it to the CSFG mailing list. (Only CSFG members are eligible to enter)

Our judges, acclaimed horror writer Kaaron Warren (Bram Stoker nominee, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award and innumerable Australian Shadows, Aurealis and Ditmar awards, and now a Shirley Jackson Award judge) and Shauna O’Meara (a 2013 Writers of the Future winner, multiple Ditmar nominee, award-winning illustrator and Aurealis judge) will judge your entries and award four passes this week, and four next week.

This week’s theme is: Peek-a-boo.

All the winning pieces (and perhaps a few other honourable mentions) will be posted to our website and FB page. Happy writing!

THE WITCH is a terrifying new horror film exploring the age-old concepts of witchcraft, black magic and possession. It starts in cinemas on 17 March and is showing exclusively in Dendy.

New England, 1630. Upon threat of banishment by the church, an English farmer leaves his colonial plantation, relocating his wife and five children to a remote plot of land on the edge of an ominous forest —within which lurks an unknown evil. Strange and unsettling things begin to happen almost immediately — animals turn malevolent, crops fail, and one child disappears as another becomes seemingly possessed by an evil spirit. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, family members accuse teenage daughter Thomasin of witchcraft, charges she adamantly denies. As circumstances grow more treacherous, each family member’s faith, loyalty and love become tested in shocking and unforgettable ways.

Writer/director Robert Eggers’ debut feature, which premiered to great acclaim at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival — winning the Best Director Prize in the U.S. Narrative Competition — painstakingly recreates a God-fearing New England decades before the 1692 Salem witch trials, in which religious convictions tragically turned to mass hysteria. Told through the eyes of the adolescent Thomasin — in a star-making turn by newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy — and supported by mesmerizing camera work and a powerful musical score, THE WITCH is a chilling and groundbreaking new take on the genre.

The competition is now closed for submissions. The winners will be announced at Conflux in October!

The CSFG is partnering up with Canberra’s premier speculative fiction convention, Conflux 11, to run a short story competition. We want your stories of 4000 words or under, in any speculative fiction genre, on this year’s theme, which is: light and light based technologies.

The competition is open to all Australian residents and members of either the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild or Conflux 11.